The math behind your credit score is getting an overhaul, with changes big enough that they might alter the behavior of both cautious spenders as well as riskier borrowers.

Most notably for those with high scores: Abiding by the golden rule of "don't close your credit card accounts" may now hurt your standing. On the other side, those with low scores may benefit from the removal of civil judgments, medical debts and tax liens as factors.

Beyond determining whether someone gets approved for a credit card, a credit score can affect what interest rate and what spending limit are offered.

The new method is being implemented later this year by VantageScore, a company created by the credit bureaus Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. It's not as well-known as Fair Isaac Corp., whose FICO score is used for the vast majority of mortgages. But VantageScore handled 8 billion account applications last year, so if you applied for a credit card, that score was likely used to approve or deny you.

Using what's known as trended data is the biggest change. The phrase means credit scores will take into account the trajectory of a borrower's debts on a month-to-month basis. So a person who is paying down debt is now likely to be scored better than a person who is making minimum monthly payments but has been slowly accumulating credit card debt.​"This is a really big deal," said John Ulzheimer, an expert in credit reports and credit scoring. Ulzheimer said taking trended data into account has long been considered by the credit score industry, but hasn't been implemented on a meaningful scale. He expects more lenders to adopt it.

David Ross is a licensed life & health insurance agent representing heath insurers National General, Manhattan Life, and New Era / Philadelphia American, as well as numerous life insurance carriers. David Ross is an Independent Associate and Director of LegalShield.

LegalShield, New Era/Philadelphia American, PrimeStar, Manhattan Life, Voya Financial, Banner Life, Transamerica, Protective Life, Securian/Minnesota Life, Cincinnati Life, Illinois Mutual, Mutual of Omaha, and National General are each separate business entities and are not affiliated with each other.